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What makes a character so compelling that readers will forgive almost anything about the plot? How do you move beyond vague flaws and generic descriptions to create people who feel pulled from real life? In this solo episode, I share 15 actionable tips for writing deep characters, curated from past interviews on the podcast. In the intro, thoughts from London Book Fair [Instagram reel @jfpennauthor; Publishing Perspectives; Audible; Spotify]; Insights from a 7-figure author business [BookBub]. This show is supported by my Patrons. Join my Community and get articles, discounts, and extra audio and video tutorials on writing craft, author business, and AI tools, at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn This episode has been created from previous episodes of The Creative Penn Podcast, curated by Joanna Penn, as well as chapters from How to Write a Novel: From Idea to Book. Links to the individual episodes are included in the transcript below. In this episode: Master the ‘Believe, Care, Invest' trifecta, how to hook readers on the very first page Define the Dramatic Question: Who is your character when the chips are down? Absolute specificity. Why “she's controlling” isn't good enough Understand the Heroine's Journey, strength through connection, not solo action Use ‘Metaphor Families' to anchor dialogue and give every character a distinctive voice Find the Diagnostic Detail, the moments that prove a character is real Writing pain onto the page without writing memoir Write diverse characters as real people, not stereotypes or plot devices Give your protagonist a morally neutral ‘hero' status. Compelling beats likeable. Build vibrant side characters for series longevity and spin-off potential Use voice as a rhythmic tool Link character and plot until they're inseparable Why discovery writers can write out of order and still build deep character Find the sensory details that make characters live and breathe More help with how to write fiction here, or in my book, How to Write a Novel. Writing Characters: 15 Tips for Writing Deep Character in Your Fiction In today's episode, I'm sharing fifteen tips for writing deep characters, synthesised from some of the most insightful interviews on The Creative Penn Podcast over the past few years, combined with what I've learned across more than forty books of my own. I'll be referencing episodes with Matt Bird, Will Storr, Gail Carriger, Barbara Nickless, and Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer. I'll also draw on my own book, How to Write a Novel, which covers these fundamentals in detail. Whether you're writing your first novel or your fiftieth, whether you're a plotter or a discovery writer like me, these tips will help you create characters that readers believe in, care about, and invest in—and keep coming back for more. Let's get into it. 1. Master the ‘Believe, Care, Invest' Trifecta When I spoke with Matt Bird on episode 624, he laid out the three things you need to achieve on the very first page of your book or in the first ten minutes of a film. He calls it “Believe, Care, and Invest.” First, the reader must believe the character is a real person, somehow proving they are not a cardboard imitation of a human being, not just a generic type walking through a generic plot. Second, the reader must care about the character's circumstances. And third, the reader must invest in the character's ability to solve the story's central problem. Matt used The Hunger Games as his primary example, and it's brilliant. On the very first page, we believe Katniss's voice. Suzanne Collins writes in first person with a staccato rhythm—lots of periods, short declarative sentences—that immediately grounds us in a survivalist mentality. We care because Katniss is starving. She's protecting her little sister. And we invest because she is out there bow hunting, which Matt pointed out is one of the most badass things a character can do. She even kills a lynx two pages in and sells the pelt. We invest in her resourcefulness and grit before the plot has even begun. Matt was very clear that this has nothing to do with the character being “likable.” He said his subtitle, Writing a Hero Anyone Will Love, doesn't mean the character has to be a good person. He described “hero” as both gender-neutral and morally neutral. A hero can be totally evil or totally good. What matters is that we believe, care, and invest. He demonstrated this beautifully by breaking down the first ten minutes of WeCrashed, where the characters of Adam and Rebekah Neumann are absolutely not likable, but we are completely hooked. Adam steals his neighbour's Chinese food through a carefully orchestrated con involving an imaginary beer. It's not admirable behaviour, but the tradecraft involved, as Matt put it—using a term from spy movies—makes us invest in him. We see a character trying to solve the big problem of his life, which is that he's poor and wants to be rich, and we want to see if he can pull it off. Actionable step: Go to the first page of your current work in progress. Does it achieve all three? Does the reader believe this is a real person with a distinctive voice? Do they care about the character's circumstances? And do they invest in the character's ability to handle what's coming? If even one of those three is missing, that's your revision priority. 2. Define the Dramatic Question: Who Are They Really? Will Storr, author of The Science of Storytelling, came on episode 490 and gave one of the most powerful frameworks I've ever heard for character-driven fiction. He explained that the human brain evolved language primarily to swap social information—in other words, to gossip. We are wired to monitor other people, to ask the question: who is this person when the chips are down? That's what Will calls the Dramatic Question, and it's what he believes lies at the heart of all compelling storytelling. It's not a question about plot. It's a question about the character's soul. And every scene in your novel should force the character to answer it. His example of Lawrence of Arabia is unforgettable. The Dramatic Question for the entire film is: who are you, Lawrence? Are you ordinary or are you extraordinary? At the beginning, Lawrence is a cocky, rebellious young soldier who believes his rebelliousness makes him superior. Every iconic scene in that three-hour film tests that belief. Sometimes Lawrence acts as though he truly is extraordinary—leading the Arabs into battle, being hailed as a god—and sometimes the world strips him bare and he sees himself as ordinary. Because it's a tragedy, he never overcomes his flaw. He doubles down on his belief that he's extraordinary until he becomes monstrous, culminating in that iconic scene where he lifts a bloody dagger and sees his own reflection with horror. Will also used Jaws to demonstrate how this works in a pure action thriller. Brody's dramatic question is simple: are you going to be old Brody who is terrified of the water, or new Brody who can overcome that fear? Every scene where the shark appears is really asking that question. And the last moment of the film isn't the shark blowing up. It's Brody swimming back through the water, saying he used to be scared of the water and he can't imagine why. Actionable step: Write down the Dramatic Question for your protagonist in a single sentence. Is it “Are you ordinary or extraordinary?” or “Are you brave enough to love again?” or “Will you sacrifice your principles for survival?” If you can't answer this with specificity, your character might still be a sketch rather than a person. 3. Get rid of Vague Flaws, and use Absolute Specificity This was one of Will Storr's most important points. He said that vague thinking about characters is really the enemy. When he teaches workshops and asks writers to describe their character's flaw, most of them say something like “they're very controlling.” And Will's response is: that's not good enough. Everyone is controlling. How are they controlling? What's the specific mechanism? He gave the example of a profile he read of Theresa May during the UK's Brexit chaos. Someone who knew her said that Theresa May's problem was that she always thinks she's the only adult in every room she goes into. Will said that stopped him in his tracks because it's so precise. If you define a character with that level of specificity, you can take them and put them in any genre, any situation—a spaceship, a Victorian drawing room, a school playground—and you will know exactly how they're going to behave. The same applies to Arthur Miller's Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, as Will described it: a man who believes absolutely in capitalistic success and the idea that when you die, you're going to be weighed on a scale, just as God weighs you for sin, but now you're weighed for success. That's not a vague flaw. That's a worldview you can drop into any story and watch it combust. Will made another counterintuitive point that I found really valuable: writers often think that piling on multiple traits will create a complex character, but the opposite is true. Starting with one highly specific flaw and running it through the demands of a relentless plot is what generates complexity. You end up with a far more nuanced, original character than if you'd started with a laundry list of vague attributes. Actionable step: Take your protagonist's flaw and pressure-test it. Is it specific enough that you could place this character in any situation and predict their behaviour? If you're stuck at “she's stubborn” or “he's insecure,” keep pushing. What kind of stubborn? What kind of insecure? Find the diagnostic sentence—the Theresa May level of precision. 4. Understand the Heroine's Journey: Strength Through Connection Gail Carriger came on episode 550 to discuss her nonfiction book, The Heroine's Journey, and it completely reframed how I think about some of my own fiction. Gail explained that the core difference between the Hero's Journey and the Heroine's Journey comes down to how strength and victory are defined. The Hero's Journey is about strength through solo action. The hero must be continually isolated to get stronger. He goes out of civilisation, faces strife alone, and achieves victory through physical prowess and self-actualisation. The Heroine's Journey is the opposite. The heroine achieves her goals by activating a network. She's a delegator, a general. She identifies where she can't do something alone, finds the people who can help, and portions out the work for mutual gain. Gail put it simply: the heroine is very good at asking for help, which our culture tends to devalue but which is actually a powerful form of strength. Crucially, Gail stressed that gender is irrelevant to which journey you're writing. Her go-to examples are striking: the recent Wonder Woman film is practically a beat-for-beat hero's journey—Gilgamesh on screen, as Gail described it. Meanwhile, Harry Potter, both the first book and the series as a whole, is a classic heroine's journey. Harry's power comes from his network—Dumbledore's Army, the Order of the Phoenix, his friendships with Ron and Hermione. He doesn't defeat Voldemort alone. He defeats Voldemort because of love and connection. This distinction has real practical consequences for writers. If you're writing a hero's journey and you hit writer's block, Gail said, the solution is usually to isolate your hero further and pile on more strife. But if you're writing a heroine's journey, the solution is probably to throw a new character into the scene—someone who has advice to offer or a skill the heroine lacks. The actual solutions to writer's block are different depending on which narrative you're writing. As I reflected on my own work, I realised that my ARKANE thriller protagonist, Morgan Sierra, follows a hero's journey—she's a solo operative, a lone wolf like Jack Reacher or James Bond. But my Mapwalker fantasy series follows a heroine's journey, with Sienna and her group of friends working together. I hadn't consciously chosen those paths; the stories led me there. But understanding the framework helps me write more intentionally now. Actionable step: Identify which journey your protagonist is on. Does your character gain strength by being alone (hero) or by building connections (heroine)? This will inform every plot decision you make, from how they face obstacles to how your story ends. 5. Use ‘Metaphor Families' to Anchor Dialogue and Voice One of the most practical techniques Matt Bird shared on episode 624 is the idea of assigning each character a “metaphor family”—a specific well of language that they draw from. This gives each character a distinctive voice that goes beyond accent or dialect. Matt explained how in The Wire, one of the most beloved TV shows of all time, every character has a different metaphor family. What struck him was that Omar, this iconic character, never utters a single curse word in the entire series. His metaphor family is pirate. He talks about parlays, uses language that feels like it belongs in Pirates of the Caribbean, and it creates this incredible ironic counterpoint against his urban setting. It tells us immediately that this is a character who sees himself in a tradition of people that doesn't match his immediate surroundings. Matt also referenced the UK version of The Office, where Gareth works at a paper company but aspires to the military. So all of his language is drawn from a military metaphor family. He doesn't talk about filing and photocopying; he talks about tactics and discipline and being on the front line. This tells us that the character has a life and dreams beyond the immediate scene—and it's the gap between aspiration and reality that makes him both funny and believable. He pointed out that a metaphor family sometimes comes from a character's background, but it's often more interesting when it comes from their aspirations. What does your character want to be? What world do they fantasise about inhabiting? That's where their language should come from. In Star Wars, Obi-Wan Kenobi is a spiritual hermit, but his metaphor family is military. He uses the language of generals and commanders, and that ironic counterpoint is part of what makes him feel so rich. Actionable step: Assign each of your main characters a metaphor family. It could be based on their job, their background, or—more interestingly—their secret aspirations. Then go through your dialogue and make sure each character is consistently drawing from that well of language. If two characters sound the same when you strip away the dialogue tags, this is the fix. 6. Find the Diagnostic Detail: The Diagonal Toast Avoid clichéd character tags—the random scar, the eye patch, the mysterious limp—unless they serve a deep narrative purpose. Matt Bird on episode 624 was very funny about this: he pointed out that Nick Fury, Odin, and eventually Thor all have eye patches in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Eye patches are done, he said. You cannot do eye patches anymore. Instead, look for what I'm calling the “diagonal toast” detail, after a scene Matt described from Captain Marvel. In the film, Captain Marvel is trying to determine whether Nick Fury is who he says he is. She asks him to prove he isn't a shapeshifting alien. Fury shares biographical details—his history, his mother—but then she pushes further and says, name one more thing you couldn't possibly have made up about yourself. And Fury says: if toast is cut diagonally, I can't eat it. Matt said that detail is gold for a writer because it feels pulled from a real life. You can pull it from your own life and gift it to your characters, and the reader can tell it's not manufactured. He gave another example from The Sopranos: Tony Soprano's mother won't answer the phone after dark. The show's creator, David Chase, confirmed on the DVD commentary that this came from his own mother, who genuinely would not answer the phone after dark and couldn't explain why. Matt's practical advice was to keep a journal. Write down the strange, specific things that people do or say. Mine your own life for those hyper-specific details. You just need one per book. In my own writing, I've used this approach. In my ARKANE thrillers, my character Morgan Sierra has always been Angelina Jolie in my mind—specifically Jolie in Lara Croft or Mr and Mrs Smith. And Blake Daniel in my crime thriller series was based on Jesse Williams from Grey's Anatomy. I paste pictures of actors into my Scrivener projects. It helps with visuals, but also with the sense of the character, their energy and physicality. But visual details only take you so far. It's the behavioural quirks—the diagonal toast moments—that make a character feel genuinely alive. That said, physical character tags can work brilliantly when they serve the story. As I discuss in How to Write a Novel, Robert Galbraith's Cormoran Strike is an amputee, and his pain and the physical challenges of his prosthesis are a key part of every story—it's not a cosmetic detail, it's woven into the action and the character's psychology. My character Blake Daniel always wears gloves to cover the scars on his hands, which provides an angle into his wounded past as well as a visual cue for the reader. And of course, Harry Potter's lightning-shaped scar isn't just a mark—it's a direct connection to his nemesis and the mythology of the entire series. The rule of thumb is: if the tag tells us something about the character's interior life or connects to the plot, it's earning its place. If it's just there to make the character visually distinctive, it's probably a crutch. Game of Thrones takes character tags further with the family houses, each with their own mottos and sigils. The Starks say “Winter is coming” and their sigil is a dire wolf. Those aren't just labels—they're worldview made visible. Actionable step: Start a “diagonal toast” notebook. Every time you notice something strange and specific about someone's behaviour—something that feels too real to be made up—write it down. Then gift it to a character who needs more texture. 7. Displace Your Own Trauma into the Work Barbara Nickless shared something deeply personal on episode 732 that fundamentally changed how I think about putting pain onto the page. While starting At First Light, the first book in her Dr. Evan Wilding series, she lost her son to epilepsy—something called SUDEP, Sudden Unexplained Death in Epilepsy. One day he was there, and the next day he was gone. Barbara said that writing helped her cope with the trauma, that doing a deep dive into Old English literature and the Viking Age for the book's research became a lifeline. But here's what's important: she didn't give Dr. Evan Wilding her exact trauma. Evan Wilding is four feet five inches, and Barbara described how he has to walk through a world that won't adjust to him. That's its own form of learning to cope when circumstances are beyond your control. She displaced her genuine grief into the character's different but parallel struggle. When I asked her about the difference between writing for therapy and writing for an audience, she drew on her experience teaching creative writing to veterans through a collaboration between the US Department of Defense and the National Endowment for the Arts. She said she's found that she can pour her heartache into her characters and process it through them, even when writing professionally, and that the genuine emotion is what touches readers. We've all been through our own losses and griefs, so seeing how a character copes can be deeply meaningful. I've always found that putting my own pain onto the page is the most direct way to connect with a reader's soul. My character Morgan Sierra's musings on religion and the supernatural are often my own. Her restlessness, her fascination with the darker edges of faith—those come from me. But her Krav Maga fighting skills and her ability to kill the bad guys are definitely her own. That gap between what's mine and what's hers is where the fiction lives. Barbara also said something on that episode that I wrote down and stuck on my wall. She said the act of producing itself is a balm to the soul. I've been thinking about that ever since. On my own wall, I have “Measure your life by what you create.” Different words, same truth. Actionable step: If you're carrying something heavy—grief, anger, fear, regret—consider how you might displace it into a character's different but emotionally parallel struggle. Don't copy your exact situation; transform it. The emotion will be genuine, and the reader will feel it. 8. Write Diverse Characters as Real People When I spoke with Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer on episode 673—Sarah is Choctaw and a historical fiction author honoured by the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian—she offered a perspective that every fiction writer needs to hear. The key message was to move away from stereotypes. Don't write your American Indian character as the “Wise Guide” who exists solely to dispense mystic wisdom to the white protagonist. Don't limit diverse characters to historical settings, as though they only exist in the past. Place them in normal, contemporary roles. Your spaceship captain, your forensic scientist, your small-town baker—any of them can be American Indian, or Nigerian, or Japanese, and their heritage should be a lived-in part of their identity, not the sole reason they exist in the story. I write international thrillers and dark fantasy, and my fiction is populated with characters from all over the world. I have a multi-cultural family and I've lived in many places and travelled widely, so I've met, worked with, and had relationships with people from different cultures. I find story ideas through travel, and if I set my books in a certain place, then the story is naturally populated with the people who live there. As I discuss in my book, How to Write a Novel, the world is a diverse place, so your fiction needs to be populated with all kinds of people. If I only populated my fiction with characters like me, they would be boring novels. There are many dimensions of difference—race, nationality, sex, age, body type, ability, religion, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, class, culture, education level—and even then, don't assume that similar types of people think the same way. Some authors worry they will make mistakes. We live in a time of outrage, and some authors have been criticised for writing outside their own experience. So is it too dangerous to try? Of course not. The media amplifies outliers, and most authors include diverse characters in every book without causing offence because they work hard to get it right. It's about awareness, research, and intent. Actionable step: Audit the cast of your current work in progress. Have you written a mono-cultural perspective for all of them? If so, consider who could bring a different background, perspective, or set of cultural specifics to the story. Not as a token addition, but as a real person with a real life. 9. Respect Tribal and Cultural Specificity Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer on episode 673 was emphatic about one thing: never treat diverse groups as monolithic. If you're writing a Native American character, you must research the specific nation. Choctaw is not Navajo, just as British is not French. Sarah described the distinct cultural markers of the Choctaw people—the diamond pattern you'll see on traditional shirts and dresses, which represents the diamondback rattlesnake. They have distinct dances and songs. She said that if she saw someone in traditional dress at a distance, she would know whether they were Choctaw based on what they were wearing. She encouraged writers who want to write specifically about a nation to get to know those people. Go to events, go to a powwow, learn about the individual culture. She noted that a big misconception is that American Indians exist only in the past—she stressed that they are still here, still living their cultures, and fiction should reflect that present reality. I took a similar approach when writing Destroyer of Worlds, which is set mostly in India. I read books about Hindu myth, watched documentaries about the sadhus, and had one of my Indian readers from Mumbai check my cultural references. For Risen Gods, set in New Zealand with a young Maori protagonist, I studied books about Maori mythology and fiction by Maori authors, and had a male Maori reader check for cultural issues. Research is simply an act of empathy. The practical takeaway is this: if you're going to include a character from a specific cultural background, do the work. Use specific cultural details rather than generic signifiers. Sarah talked about how even she fell into stereotypes when she was first writing, until her mother pointed them out. If someone from within a culture can fall into those traps, the rest of us certainly can. Do the research, try your best, ask for help, and apologise if you need to. Actionable step: If you're writing a character from a specific culture, identify three to five sensory or behavioural details that are particular to that culture—not the generic version, but the real, researched, lived-in version. Consider hiring a sensitivity reader from that community to check your work. 10. Give Your Protagonist a Morally Neutral ‘Hero' Status Matt Bird was clear about this on episode 624: the word “hero” simply means the protagonist, the person we follow through the story. It's a functional role, not a moral label. We don't have to like them. We don't even have to root for their goals in a moral sense. We just have to find them compelling enough to invest our attention in their problem-solving. Think of Succession, where every member of the Roy family is varying degrees of awful, and yet the show was utterly compelling. Or WeCrashed, where Adam Neumann is a narcissistic con artist, but we can't look away because he's trying to solve the enormous problem of building an empire from nothing, and the tradecraft he employs is fascinating. As I wrote in How to Write a Novel, readers must want to spend time with your characters. They don't have to be lovable or even likable—that will depend on your genre and story choices—but they have to be captivating enough that we want to spend time with them. A character who is trying to solve a massive problem will naturally draw investment from the audience, even if we wouldn't want to have tea with them. Will Storr extended this idea by pointing out that the audience will actually root for a character to solve their problem even if the audience doesn't actually want the character's goal to be achieved in the real world. We don't really want more billionaires, but we invested in Adam Neumann's rise because that was the problem the story posed, and our brains are wired to invest in problem-solving. This connects to something deeper: what does your character want, and why? As I explore in How to Write a Novel, desire operates on multiple levels. Take a character like Phil, who joins the military during wartime. On the surface, she wants to serve her country. But she also wants to escape her dead-end town and learn new skills. Deeper still, her father and grandfather served, and by joining up, she hopes to finally earn their respect. And perhaps deepest of all, her father died on a mission under mysterious circumstances, and she wants to find out what happened from the inside. That layering of motivation is what turns a flat character into a three-dimensional one. The audience doesn't need to be told all of this explicitly. It can emerge through action, dialogue, and the choices the character makes under pressure. But you, the writer, need to know it. You need to know what your character really wants deep down, because that desire—more than any external plot device—is what drives the story forward. And your antagonist needs the same depth. They also want something, often diametrically opposed to your protagonist, and they need a reason that makes sense to them. In my ARKANE thriller Tree of Life, my antagonist is the heiress of a Brazilian mining empire who wants to restore the Earth to its original state to atone for the destruction caused by her father's company. She's part of a radical ecological group who believe the only way to restore Nature is to end all human life. It's extreme, but in an era of climate change, it's a motivation readers can understand—even if they disagree with the solution. Actionable step: If you're struggling to make a morally grey character work, make sure their problem is big enough and their methods are specific and interesting enough that we invest in the how, even if we're ambivalent about the what. 11. Build Vibrant Side Characters Gail Carriger made a point on episode 550 that was equal parts craft advice and business strategy. In a Heroine's Journey model, side characters aren't just fodder to be killed off to motivate the hero. They form a network. And because you don't have to kill them—unlike in a hero's journey, where allies are often betrayed or removed so the hero can be further isolated—you can pick up those side characters and give them their own books. Gail said this creates a really voracious reader base. You write one series with vivid side characters, and then readers fall in love with those side characters and want their stories. So you write spin-offs. The romance genre does this brilliantly—think of the Bridgerton books, where each sibling gets their own novel. The side character in one book becomes the protagonist in the next. Barbara Nickless experienced this firsthand with her Dr. Evan Wilding series. She has River Wilding, Evan's adventurous brother, and Diana, the axe-throwing research assistant, and her editor has already expressed interest in a spin-off series with those characters. Barbara described creating characters she wants to spend time with, or characters who give her nightmares but also intrigue her. That's the dual test: are they interesting enough for you to write, and interesting enough for readers to demand more? As I wrote in How to Write a Novel, characters that span series can deepen the reader's relationship with them as you expand their backstory into new plots. Readers will remember the character more than the plot or the book title, and look forward to the next instalment because they want more time with those people. British crime author Angela Marsons described it as readers feeling like returning to her characters is like putting on a pair of old slippers. Actionable step: Look at your supporting cast. Is there a side character who is vivid enough to carry their own story? If not, what could you add—a specific hobby, a distinct voice, a compelling backstory—that would make readers want more of them? 12. Use Voice as a Rhythmic Tool Voice is one of the most important elements of novel writing, and Matt Bird helped me think about it in a technical, mechanical way that I found really useful. He pointed out that the ratio of periods to commas defines a character's internal reality. A staccato rhythm—lots of periods, short sentences—suggests a character who is certain, grounded, or perhaps survivalist and traumatised. Katniss in The Hunger Games has a period-heavy voice. She's in survival mode. She doesn't have time for complexity or qualification. A flowing, comma-heavy style suggests someone more academic, more nuanced, or possibly more scattered and manipulative. The character who qualifies everything, who adds sub-clauses and digressions, is a different kind of person from the character who speaks in declarations. This is something you can actually measure. Pull up a passage of your character's dialogue or internal monologue and count the periods versus the commas. If the rhythm doesn't match who the character is supposed to be, you've found a mismatch you can fix. Sentence length is the heartbeat of your character's persona. And voice extends beyond rhythm to the words themselves. As I discussed in the metaphor families tip, each character should draw from a distinctive well of language. But voice also encompasses their relationship to silence. Some characters talk around the thing they mean; others say it straight. Some are self-deprecating; others are blunt to the point of rudeness. All of these choices are character choices, not just style choices. I find it useful to read my dialogue aloud—and not just to check for naturalness, but to hear whether each character sounds distinct. If you could swap dialogue lines between two characters and nobody would notice, you have a voice problem. One practical test: cover the dialogue tags and see if you can tell who's speaking from the words alone. Actionable step: Choose a key passage from your protagonist's point of view and read it aloud. Does the rhythm match the character? A soldier under fire should not sound like a philosophy professor at a wine tasting. Adjust the ratio of periods to commas until the voice feels right. 13. Link Character and Plot Until They're Inseparable Will Storr made the case on episode 490 that the number one problem he sees in the writing he encounters—in workshops, in submissions, even in published books—is that the characters and the plots are unconnected. There's a story happening, and there are people in it, but the story isn't a product of who those people are. He said a story should be like life. In our lives, the plots are intimately connected to who we are as characters. The goals we pursue, the obstacles we face, the same problems that keep recurring—these are products of our personalities, our flaws, our specific ways of being in the world. His framework is that your plot should be designed specifically to plot against your character. You've got a character with a particular flaw; the plot exists to test that flaw over and over until the character either transforms or doubles down and explodes. Jaws is the perfect example. Brody is afraid of water. A shark shows up in the coastal town he's responsible for protecting. The entire plot is engineered to force him to confront the one thing he cannot face. Will pointed out that the whole plot of Jaws is structured around Brody's flaw. It begins with the shark arriving, the midpoint is when Brody finally gets the courage to go into the water, and the very final scene isn't the shark blowing up—it's Brody swimming back through the water. Even a film that's ninety-eight percent action is, at its core, structured around a character with a character flaw. This is the standard I aspire to in my own work, even in my action-heavy thrillers. The external plot should be a mirror of the internal struggle. When those two are aligned, the story becomes irresistible. Will also made an important point about series fiction, which is where most commercial authors live. I asked him how this works when your character can't be transformed at the end of every book because there has to be a next book. His answer was elegant: you don't cure them. Episodic TV characters like Fleabag or David Brent or Basil Fawlty never truly change—and the fact that they don't change is actually the source of the comedy. But every episode throws a new story event at them that tests and exposes their flaw. You just keep throwing story events at them again and again. That's a soap opera, a sitcom, and a book series. As I wrote in How to Write a Novel, character flaws are aspects of personality that affect the person so much that facing and overcoming them becomes central to the plot. In Jaws, the protagonist Brody is afraid of the water, but he has to overcome that flaw to destroy the killer shark and save the town. But remember, your characters should feel like real people, so never define them purely by their flaws. The character addicted to painkillers might also be a brilliant and successful female lawyer who gets up at four in the morning to work out at the gym, likes eighties music, and volunteers at the local dog shelter at weekends. Character wounds are different from flaws. They're formed from life experience and are part of your character's backstory—traumatic events that happened before the events of your novel but shape the character's reactions in the present. In my ARKANE thrillers, Morgan Sierra's husband Elian died in her arms during a military operation. This happened before the series begins, but her memories of it recur when she faces a firefight, and she struggles to find happiness again for fear of losing someone she loves once more. And then there's the perennial advice: show, don't tell. Most writers have heard this so many times that it's easy to nod and then promptly write scenes that tell rather than show. Basically, you need to reveal your character through action and dialogue, rather than explanation. In my thriller Day of the Vikings, Morgan Sierra fights a Neo-Viking in the halls of the British Museum and brings him down with Krav Maga. That fight scene isn't just about showing action. It opens up questions about her backstory, demonstrates character, and moves the plot forward. Telling would be something like: “Morgan was an expert in Krav Maga.” Showing is the reader discovering it through the scene itself. Actionable step: Look at the main plot events of your novel. For each major turning point, ask: does this scene specifically test my protagonist's flaw? If not, can you redesign the scene so that it does? The tighter the connection between character and plot, the more powerful the story. 14. The ‘Maestra' Approach: Write Out of Order If you're a discovery writer like me, you may feel like the deep character work I've been describing sounds more suited to plotters. But Barbara Nickless gave me a beautiful metaphor on episode 732 that reframes it entirely. Barbara described her evolving writing process as being like a maestra standing in front of an orchestra. Sometimes you bring in the horns—a certain theme—and sometimes you bring in the strings—a certain character—and sometimes you turn to the soloist. It's a more organic and jumping-around process than linear writing, and Barbara said she's only recently given herself permission to work this way. When I told her that I use Scrivener to write in scenes out of order and then drag and drop them into a structure later, she was genuinely intrigued. And this is how I've always worked. I'll see the story in my mind like a movie trailer—flashes of the big emotional scenes, the pivotal confrontations, the moments of revelation—and I write those first. I don't know how they hang together until quite late in the process. Then I'll move scenes around, print the whole thing out, and figure out the connective tissue. The point is that discovery writers can absolutely build deep characters. Sometimes writing the big emotional scenes first is how you discover who the character is before you fill in the rest. You don't need a twenty-page character worksheet or a 200-page outline like Jeffery Deaver. You need to be willing to follow the character into the unknown and trust that the structure will emerge. As Barbara said, she writes to know what she's thinking. That's the discovery writer's credo. And I would add: I write to know who my characters are. Actionable step: If you're stuck on your current chapter, skip it. Write the scene that's burning in your imagination, even if it's from the middle or the end. That scene might be the key to unlocking who your character really is. 15. Use Research to Help with Empathy Research shouldn't just be about factual accuracy—it's a tool for finding the sensory details that create empathy. Barbara Nickless described research as almost an excuse to explore things that fascinate her, and I feel exactly the same way. I would go so far as to say that writing is an excuse for me to explore the things that interest me. Barbara and I both travel for our stories. For her Dr. Evan Wilding books, she did deep research into Old English literature and the Viking Age. For my thriller End of Days, I transcribed hours of video from Appalachian snake-handling churches on YouTube to understand the worldview of the worshippers, because my antagonist was brought up in that tradition. I couldn't just make that up. I had to hear their language, feel their conviction, understand why they would hold venomous serpents as an act of faith. Barbara also mentioned getting to Israel and the West Bank for research, and I've been to both places too. Finding that one specific sensory detail—the smell of a particular location, the specific way an expert handles a tool, the sound of a particular kind of music—makes the character's life feel lived-in. It's the difference between a character who is described as living in a place and a character who inhabits it. As I wrote in How to Write a Novel, don't write what you know. Write what you want to learn about. I love research. It's part of why I'm an author in the first place. I take any excuse to dive into a world different from my own. Research using books, films, podcasts, and travel, and focus particularly on sources produced by people from the worldview you want to understand. Actionable step: For your next piece of character research, go beyond reading. Watch a documentary, visit a location, talk to someone who lives the experience. Find one sensory detail—a smell, a sound, a texture—that you couldn't have invented. That detail will make your character feel real. Bonus: Measure Your Life by What You Create In an age of AI and a tsunami of content, your ultimate brand protection is the quality of your human creation. Barbara Nickless said that the act of producing itself is a balm to the soul, and I believe that with every fibre of my being. Don't be afraid to take that step back, like I did with my deadlifting. Take the time to master these deeper craft skills. It might feel like you're slowing down or going backwards by not chasing the latest marketing trend, but it's the only way to step forward into a sustainable, high-quality career. Your characters are your signature. No AI can replicate the specificity of your lived experience, the emotional truth of your displaced trauma, or the sensory details you've gathered from a life of curiosity and travel. Those are yours. Pour them into your characters, and they will resonate for years to come. Actionable Takeaway: Identify the Dramatic Question for your current protagonist. Can you state it in a single sentence with the kind of specificity Will Storr described? Is it as clear as “Are you ordinary or extraordinary?” or “Are you the only adult in the room?” If you can't answer it with that kind of precision, your character might still be a sketch. Give them a diagonal toast moment today. Find the one hyper-specific detail that proves they are not an imitation of life. And then ask yourself: does your plot test your character's flaw in every major scene? If you can align those two things—a precisely defined character and a plot that exists to test them—you will have a story that readers cannot put down. References and Deep Dives The episodes I've referenced today are all available with full transcripts at TheCreativePenn.com: Episode 732 — Facing Fears, and Writing Unique Characters with Barbara Nickless Episode 673 — Writing Choctaw Characters and Diversity in Fiction with Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer Episode 624 — Writing Characters with Matt Bird Episode 550 — The Heroine's Journey with Gail Carriger Episode 490 — How Character Flaws Shape Story with Will Storr Books mentioned: The Secrets of Character: Writing a Hero Anyone Will Love by Matt Bird The Science of Storytelling by Will Storr The Heroine's Journey by Gail Carriger How to Write a Novel: From Idea to Book by Joanna Penn You can find all my books for authors at CreativePennBooks.com and my fiction and memoir at JFPennBooks.com Happy writing! How was this episode created? This episode was initiated created by NotebookLM based on YouTube videos of the episodes linked above from YouTube/TheCreativePenn, plus my text chapters on character from How to Write a Novel. NotebookLM created a blog post from the material and then I expanded it and fact checked it with Claude.ai 4.6 Opus, and then I used my voice clone at ElevenLabs to narrate it. The post Writing Characters: 15 Actionable Tips For Writing Deep Character first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Jordan With a Why is a South Auckland-based R&B and neo-soul artist who blends Maori and Samoan heritage into her music. She joins Mihi live from the Pasifika Festival at Western Springs.

There's been plenty of commentary around a Bill that's before Parliament which seeks to make English an official language of New Zealand. It's part of a coalition deal with National and New Zealand First, putting English alongside Maori and Sign Language. That got us thinking about "official" languages and how they get such status, for more on this Dr Andreea Calude joins Jesse.

What if retirement isn't about doing less, but about becoming more? George Jerjian spent his career as a retirement mindset coach, helping others navigate life after work. Then he decided to practice what he preached. He planned an 80-day round-the-world journey, intentionally choosing unfamiliar countries where he'd be forced out of his comfort zone and into transformation. This greatest hits crossover from Stacking Adventures brings George's story to the basement, not because it's about exotic travel (though the destinations are incredible), but because it illustrates something crucial about the retirement mindset. The question isn't whether you can afford to travel. The question is whether you're willing to reinvent yourself when the structure of work disappears. George shares the planning behind his epic journey, including why he used a travel agent (yes, really), how he chose destinations that would challenge him rather than just relax him, and what each stop taught him about identity, purpose, and staying relevant after a career ends. From South Africa's Robben Island and a five day safari that taught him about patience, to Australia's Great Barrier Reef and a Melbourne Immigration Museum exhibit that forced him to rethink identity, to New Zealand's Milford Sound and a Maori dance lesson about seeking approval, to Japan's samurai service culture and Hiroshima's lesson in resilience, to Canada's awe inducing Rockies and French-flavored Quebec. Every stop was chosen deliberately to teach him something, not just show him something. The conversation explores his DARE method for retirement planning, why so many retirees struggle with identity once their business cards disappear, and how intentional travel creates the mindset shift that makes retirement feel expansive rather than diminishing. Along the way, Joe and Crystal plug the "Where in the World is Crystal Hammond?" guessing game (she's not in the continental U.S. or Aruba), announce Seattle and Boston community meetups, and mention the Vault tool for credit monitoring. Plus, you'll hear about George's book, Odyssey of an Elder: Around the World in 80 Days. What You'll Learn: • Why retirement success depends on mindset transformation, not just financial preparation • George's DARE method for retirement planning and identity • How to plan transformational travel versus just vacation travel • Why choosing unfamiliar destinations matters more than comfortable ones • What each stop on George's journey taught him about life after work • How travel forces identity shifts that make retirement feel expansive • Why so many retirees struggle once their professional identity disappears • Practical strategies for reinventing yourself when work ends • How to use travel as a tool for personal growth, not just leisure This Episode Is For You If: • You're approaching retirement and worried about losing your identity • You've saved enough money but haven't thought about who you'll become • You're recently retired and struggling with the transition • You want retirement to feel like expansion, not contraction • You believe travel can transform you, not just entertain you Question for You: If you could take an 80-day trip designed to transform you (not just relax you), where would you go and why? Drop your answer in the comments or the Basement Facebook group. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Questions to Ministers Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his Government's statements and actions? CAMERON BREWER to the Minister of Finance: Are events in the Middle East impacting the New Zealand economy? Hon BARBARA EDMONDS to the Minister of Finance: Does she stand by all her statements and actions? MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI to the Minister for Child Poverty Reduction: What immediate actions is she taking to stop the escalation of the near-170,000 tamariki experiencing child poverty and hardship, particularly for Maori, who make up a quarter of this number across Aotearoa? CHLÖE SWARBRICK to the Prime Minister: E tautoko ana ia i nga korero me nga mahi katoa a tona Kawanatanga? Does he stand by all of his Government's statements and actions? Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL to the Minister of Health: Does he agree with Health New Zealand that "New Zealanders expect that companies involved in healthcare have secure systems and platforms that safeguard their private information"; if so, what steps has he taken to get assurance that all companies involved in healthcare have cyber-secure systems? MIKE BUTTERICK to the Minister of Finance: What recent announcements has she made regarding KiwiSaver? RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: Will the Social Security (Accident Compensation and Calculation of Weekly Income) Amendment Bill impact ACC claimants who have survived sexual violence, survived abuse in care, and survived traumatic head injuries; if so, how many? CARL BATES to the Minister of Justice: What action is the Government taking to address disorderly behaviour in our communities? Hon GINNY ANDERSEN to the Minister of Police: Are there more or fewer individuals on the National Gang List since he took office? Dr VANESSA WEENINK to the Minister of Health: What recent announcements has he made about the use of AI scribes in our emergency departments? ANDY FOSTER to the Associate Minister of Health: What announcements has she made regarding tobacco and vape sale compliance?

Chicago's Très Mortimer lands on the Data Transmission podcast this week, fresh from dropping his ‘PRADA' release on his own Optics Records and bringing a mix packed with unreleased fire. The Optics boss has been carving out his own lane in recent years, pushing groove-led house rooted in Chicago tradition but built for modern floors. With releases across labels like Ministry of Sound, Mad Decent and Three Six Zero, plus support from the likes of Seth Troxler, BLOND:ISH and Diplo, Mortimer's records have been doing damage from rooftops to sweaty basements. His mix for DT gives a proper snapshot of where his head's at right now. The opener sets the tone straight away with his unreleased collaboration with Geo Smith, ‘Bass Controller', a track he recently tested in New York and describes as “dancefloor certified.” It's a chunky, groove-heavy start that rolls straight into cuts from Life on Planets and Jansons, DMX Krew, CASSIMM and Kolter. There are a couple more unreleased moments in there too, including JAKKOB's ‘DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?', while the middle section lifts off with a mash-up of Maori and OMRI's ‘Levitate' layered with Future, Metro Boomin, Playboi Carti and Travis Scott's ‘Type Shit'. Naturally, Très Mortimer's own ‘PRADA (Hans Extended Mix)' makes an appearance. It's his favourite moment in the mix and a darker flip of the record, driven by heavy basslines and late-night pressure. That bassline approach is a big part of his style too, he prefers grooves that skip the first beat, leaving space for the drums to punch through and keep the floor moving. The mix wraps with club-ready cuts from Gabss, Méssous and Kolter, keeping the groove locked all the way through. Next up, Mortimer is gearing up for a big hometown moment with ARC Festival in Chicago, with the announcement landing soon. Hit play below and dive into Très Mortimer's Data Transmission mix. ⚡️Like the Mix? Click the [Repost] ↻ button so more people can hear it!

The latest News in Cook Island Maori ( Te Reo Maori Kiki Airani), brought to you by our partners Pacific Media Network

The latest News in Cook Island Maori ( Te Reo Maori Kiki Airani), brought to you by our partners Pacific Media Network

Murray and New Zealand's Prime Minister are developing New Zealand Town, complete with Gary the sheep, Maori warriors in their natural habitat, bungee jumping and a replica of the tooth brush fence! Bret and Jemaine can't help because they have been introduced to a very addictive substance that gives them all the confidence they need--hair gel! They discover they can actually be cool and maybe even get people to come to their gigs. Trouble comes when they wake up one morning to find the hair gel has run out and so has their confidence. Murray convinces them that they never needed the gel in the first place, so they play a gig all excited before discovering that they actually do need the hair gel to be cool...also blueberry pancakes.

In this episode, we delve into the extraordinary experiences of Johnny from the White Mountains of New Hampshire, whose encounters with Bigfoot began after relocating to the rugged terrain within twenty miles of Mount Washington. With a lifelong background in psychic sensitivity and Indigenous Māori traditions, Johnny shares how subtle feelings of being watched along remote forestry roads slowly unfolded into something far more profound.Describing unexplained impacts on his vehicle, strange energy barriers at the edge of ski slopes, and fleeting glimpses of massive gray figures moving through dense timber, Johnny paints a vivid picture of activity deep in the New England wilderness. He recounts moments of apparent telepathic communication, predator-style cloaking effects, and a towering face-to-face sighting of a being estimated between nine and eleven feet tall.Johnny also explores the energetic nature of these forest beings, offering insight into their awareness, intelligence, and presence in the White Mountains region. His detailed testimony raises compelling questions about what may be operating in some of the most iconic landscapes of New Hampshire.Join us as we navigate Johnny's remarkable experiences and the growing mystery surrounding Bigfoot in the Mount Washington area.

The latest news in Cook Islands Maori (Te Reo Maori Kuki Airani) - brought to you by our partner - Pacific Media Network.

A new study found e-bikes can improve physical and mental health and help manage chronic conditions among Maori and Pacific people. Project lead and co-author, Caroline Shaw spoke to Ingrid Hipkiss.

The latest news in Cook Islands Maori (Te Reo Maori Kuki Airani) - brought to you by our partner - Pacific Media Network.

The latest News in Cook Island Maori ( Te Reo Maori Kiki Airani), brought to you by our partners Pacific Media Network

The latest news in Cook Islands Maori (Te Reo Maori Kuki Airani) - brought to you by our partner - Pacific Media Network.

L'équipe de c'tout comme reçoit Alex du podcast Geon Bae ! pour chanter du Madonna et parler de cette icône pop.La chanson finale est interprétée par l'équipe et l'invitée ainsi que Ook, Bibou et Bibounette, Aurélien, Papy Al, Elsa, Karine, Melody, Flore, Aude, avec Benjamin et Maori

"I wake up at 3 AM, check my phone to see what fresh hell has come out, and it's usually two words: 'Trump threatens.'" — Peter BaleWe're reversing the lens today. Rather than examining America from the inside, we're peering at it from the outside in—from New Zealand, at the bottom of the world. Peter Bale is a longtime media executive who's had senior positions at CNN, Reuters, and News Corp. He's now back in his native New Zealand, waking up at 3 AM to check his phone. The news, he says, is usually two words: "Trump threatens."Much of our conversation centers on the former NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. She led New Zealand's COVID response, Anthony Fauci style, with daily press conferences and a scientific mastery of the facts. An estimated 20,000 lives were saved. But she also became the target of profound misogyny and physical threats that no New Zealand Prime Minister had ever experienced. She now lives in Boston—teaching at Harvard's Shorenstein Center—because she can't safely live in her own country.Bale describes a dark MAGA-style underbelly in New Zealand that surprised him when he returned after 50 years abroad. Christian nationalists, anti-Maori sentiment, "Christchurch skinheads." US platforms—especially X—have given permission to speak in ways that would have been unacceptable. When the President uses that rhetoric, Bale notes, the permission for personal calumny is quadrupled.We also discuss the Epstein files (the media failed to connect the dots), Will Lewis's destruction of the Washington Post ("utterly reprehensible"), and whether America is finished. Bale's answer: "I don't think America is ever done. Every time people perceive it to be done, it has a political or economic renewal." The question is who comes after Trump—Vance or somebody even more threatening—and who will keep waking Peter Bale at 3 AM. Five Takeaways●      The View from 18,000 Miles Is Punch-Drunk: Bale wakes at 3 AM to check his phone. The news is usually two words: "Trump threatens." Small countries like New Zealand depend on the international rule of law. When that breaks down, they feel it acutely.●      Jacinda Ardern Became New Zealand's Fauci: She led the COVID response with daily press conferences and saved an estimated 20,000 lives. But she became the target of profound misogyny and physical threats. She now lives in Boston because she can't safely live in New Zealand.●      "They Are Us" Was the Right Three Words: After an Australian livestreamed himself killing 51 Muslims in Christchurch, Ardern flew there immediately, wore a head covering, and said of the victims: "They are us." It hung in the air as exactly what needed to be said.●      Trumpism Has Gone International: New Zealand has its own dark underbelly—Christian nationalists, anti-Maori sentiment, "Christchurch skinheads." US platforms have given permission to speak in ways that would have been unacceptable. When the President uses that rhetoric, the permission is quadrupled.●      America Is Never Done: Every time people perceive it to be finished, it has a political or economic renewal. Its ability to rebuild itself constantly is astounding. The question is who comes after Trump—Vance or somebody worse. About the GuestPeter Bale is a longtime media executive based in New Zealand. He has held senior positions at CNN, Reuters, News Corp, and the Center for Public Integrity. He ran WikiTribune and has been a close observer of both American and international media for decades.ReferencesPeople mentioned:●      Jacinda Ardern was Prime Minister of New Zealand during COVID. She now teaches at Harvard's Shorenstein Center because she can't safely live in her own country.●      Mark Carney has articulated what Bale calls the "Carney doctrine"—medium-sized countries standing up to US unilateralism.●      Will Lewis presided over cuts at the Washington Post that Bale calls "utterly reprehensible," including eliminating international bureaus and the books section.●      Michael Wolff has spent three years trying to interest mainstream media in Trump-Epstein connections. Trump's defense: "I'm not a schmuck enough to use email."About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:00) - Introduction: Reversing the lens (01:00) - Punch-drunk 18,000 miles away (03:00) - The Carney doctrine and standing up to Trump (05:00) - Whatever happened to Jacinda Ardern? (08:00) - Ardern as New Zealand's Fauci (09:00) - The Christchurch mosque shooting: 'They are us' (11:00) - The dark heart of New Zealand politics (13:00) - Has New Zealand caught Trumpism? (15:00) - The collapse of trust in media (16:00) - Peter's role in New Zealand media funding (18:00) - Opinion vs. reporting: What went wrong (21:00) - The Epstein files and media failure (25:00) - Will Lewis and the Washington Post disaster (28:00) - Will America survive? (30:00) - America is never done

The latest News in Cook Island Maori ( Te Reo Maori Kiki Airani), brought to you by our partners Pacific Media Network

The kiwifruit season gets underway for Maori-owned kiwifruit orchards in the Bay of Plenty and the latest of red meat exports. The morning's rural news with Gianina Schwanecke.

Coming up first on Tagata o te Moana: A former Fiji prime minister and police chief are charged with inciting mutiny. We look for mentions of the Pacific in the Epstein files. And are you of Maori and Pacific descent? Find out how you might be able to save a life today. All that and more stories from the week at RNZ Pacific.Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

The latest news in Cook Islands Maori (Te Reo Maori Kuki Airani) - brought to you by our partner - Pacific Media Network.

The latest News in Cook Island Maori ( Te Reo Maori Kiki Airani), brought to you by our partners Pacific Media Network

Keeya Wiki (Yurok and Maori) is not yet old enough to vote, but she is making waves in official discussions about climate policy and environmental sustainability. She was among a group of young people who made a historic kayak journey down the Klamath River from its source in the Cascade Mountains to its confluence with the Pacific Ocean after the largest dam removal project in history. It was both a celebration of her tribe's accomplishments and a statement about what she sees as the future of successful, tribally-driven environmental policy. Since then she has also served as a delegate to the U.N.'s recent climate summit in Brazil. We'll hear about her determined and creative intersection of cultural knowledge and modern climate activism. GUESTS Keeya Wiki (Yurok and Māori descent), Indigenous advocate Ruby Williams (Karuk), Native water activist and kayaker Break 1 Music: BALDH3AD! (song) Theia (artist) Break 2 Music: Digital Winter (song) Ya Tseen (artist) Stand On My Shoulders (album)

Questions to Ministers SCOTT WILLIS to the Minister for Energy: Has he seen reports that the big four electricity gentailers are projected to make $1.86 billion in operating profits for the six months to December; if so, does he think it's fair that households will likely pay more on their power bills on average to fund a liquefied natural gas import terminal? LAURA McCLURE to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: What will the changes in the Employment Relations Amendment Bill mean for businesses and workers? NANCY LU to the Minister of Finance: What reports has she seen about the economy? Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his Government's statements and actions? Hon MELISSA LEE to the Minister responsible for RMA Reform: What recent announcements has he made about Eden Park? TAKUTA FERRIS to the Minister of Health: Does he agree with the former Minister of Health's statement that "I want to see IMPBs with the ability to have commissioning authority. I will empower local health decisions and Maori health providers with more autonomy than they have had for some years"; if so, why does the Healthy Futures (Pae Ora) Amendment Bill remove statutory functions from iwi-Maori partnership boards? Hon BARBARA EDMONDS to the Minister of Finance: Does she stand by all her statements and actions? PAULO GARCIA to the Minister of Immigration: What update can she provide on the Active Investor Plus visa? Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS to the Minister for Energy: What is the estimated life cycle cost of the LNG terminal compared to projected levy revenue over the 15- and 20-year life cycles described in the Cabinet paper? CARL BATES to the Minister for Tourism and Hospitality: What recent announcements has she made about supporting major events in New Zealand? TEANAU TUIONO to the Minister of Climate Change: Has he seen the Copernicus Climate Change Service's recent finding that 2025 ranked among one of the hottest years for the Western Pacific region; if so, what actions has he taken to ensure Aotearoa is committed to ambitious climate action? Hon KIERAN McANULTY to the Minister for Infrastructure: Does he stand by his statements following the release of the Infrastructure Commission's National Infrastructure Plan?

Winston Peters is back with a familiar policy to abolish the Maori seats. We look at why his timing is shrewd and why it's making Christopher Luxon look so weak. Damien Grant and Jordan Williams join us to debate the future of our democracy. Plus, we dig into the cultural leave story the mainstream media refused to touch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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On the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast for Monday the 16th of February, Eden Park boss Nick Sautner got his wish and we can finally use Eden Park as a proper stadium - plus the worst kept secret, State of Origin is indeed coming to NZ. The Prime Minister responds to his coalition partner's ideas of getting rid of the Maori seats and dropping some MP's from Parliament, plus these cultural leave entitlements in the public sector. Jason Pine and Andrew Saville cover off the chaos of the SailGP, the beginning of Super Rugby and F1 testing. Get the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast every weekday morning on iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to a Wide World of Sports update. A snapshot of the latest sport stories from the 9News team including: Indigenous and Maori sides play out draw in All Stars clash Coaches believe AFL's State of Origin here to stay Incredible redemption story at LIV Adelaide The biggest sport stories in less than 5 minutes delivered twice a day, with reports from the 9News team across Australia and overseas. Subscribe now to make it part of your daily news diet. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The latest news in Cook Islands Maori (Te Reo Maori Kuki Airani) - brought to you by our partner - Pacific Media Network.

Winston Peters has revived an old policy, promising to campaign on a referendum on the Maori seats. The opposition is calling it cynical race-baiting. Russell Palmer reports.

Questions to Ministers Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS to the Minister for Energy: Does he stand by all his statements and actions regarding liquefied natural gas? NANCY LU to the Minister of Finance: What recent reports has she seen on Investment Boost? LAURA McCLURE to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: What legislation is she currently progressing? Hon GINNY ANDERSEN to the Minister of Police: Does he stand by all his statements and actions related to supporting Police's front line? ORIINI KAIPARA to the Minister of Internal Affairs: What assurances can she give to Maori, and to all vulnerable communities in Aotearoa, that they will not be harmed by the Online Casino Gambling Bill? TAMATHA PAUL to the Minister of Local Government: What advice has he asked for or received about the risk of more wastewater disasters like that at Moa Point, noting that the water regulator says about a third of wastewater plants are operating with expired consents? TANGI UTIKERE to the Minister of Transport: Does he stand by his statement, "The Government is committed to the Roads of National Significance"? TIM COSTLEY to the Minister of Housing: What progress has Kainga Ora made on its turnaround plan? SCOTT WILLIS to the Minister for Energy: What is the total estimated cost of infrastructure and annual lease fees over 15 years for the proposed liquefied natural gas import terminal? Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL to the Minister of Climate Change: Does he agree with Hon Nicola Willis that "New Zealand globally contributes an absolutely tiny proportion of overall emissions"; if so, is this an indication the Government has given up on goals to reduce our emissions? MAUREEN PUGH to the Minister of Conservation: What recent announcements has he made regarding conservation concessions? LEMAUGA LYDIA SOSENE to the Minister of Internal Affairs: Is she still confident that firefighters have the appliances and equipment they need to do their jobs safely and effectively; if so, why?

On the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast for Friday the 13th of February, is there a water tax in the RMA bill? Chris Bishop responds to some angry farmers. Karen Chhour answers questions about why there is Maori leave entitlements at Oranga Tamariki and whether it is more widespread than one Government department. Kate Hawkesby and Tim Wilson on concert reviews, adult kids back at the house and Kiwis bed times. Get the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast every weekday morning on iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to a Wide World of Sports update. A snapshot of the latest sport stories from the 9News team including: Maori coach Blair wants All Stars game to remain in pre-season WA and Victoria train ahead of State of Origin clash Leishman tied for lead after R1 at LIV Adelaide The biggest sport stories in less than 5 minutes delivered twice a day, with reports from the 9News team across Australia and overseas. Subscribe now to make it part of your daily news diet. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The latest News in Cook Island Maori ( Te Reo Maori Kiki Airani), brought to you by our partners Pacific Media Network

The latest news in Cook Islands Maori (Te Reo Maori Kuki Airani) - brought to you by our partner - Pacific Media Network.

The issue of cultural appropriation has been back in the news recently after an Australian brand called itself Aroha. That got us thinking about the process of naming your business. In the case of the activewear company called Aroha, the founder has admitted her research was "surface level" and since the backlash is now weighing up whether to keep using the word. The Hoka shoe brand is another high profile example of using te reo Maori words as a brand name. Hoka roughly translates from te reo Maori as "to fly". So we asked Johnson McKay from Maori owned consultancy Ira to join us to discuss.

The latest news in Cook Islands Maori (Te Reo Maori Kuki Airani) - brought to you by our partner - Pacific Media Network.

A Maori-owned agri-business could move manufacturing overseas and an update from Central Otago cherry growers as the harvest wraps up. The morning's rural news with Gianina Schwanecke.

The latest News in Cook Island Maori ( Te Reo Maori Kiki Airani), brought to you by our partners Pacific Media Network

01. Sharam, Millean - Party All The Time 02. Mr. Belt, Wezol, Nicola Fasano, Steve Forest, Topazz - New Millenium 03. Moullinex, Tee Flowers - Open House 04. Brock Edwards - Better 05. Mattei & Omich, Re-Tide - Friday Night 06. Paolo Solo - Basement 07. Davide Toschi - Light Shadow 08. Dont Blink - Feel so right 09. The Sunchasers - Move Your Body 10. Lightleak - Mambos 11. Maori, Adam Ten, Vintage Culture - Spring Girl 12. Zetbee, Reiner Von Vielen, Chemars - Moonlight 13. Yesca - Mood Loops 14. Dj Tennis, Ashee - I Wanna Know 15. Jack Harlow, Sonny Fodera - First Class 16. Finn, Ferreck Dawn, Robosonic - Sometimes The Going Gets A Little Tough 17. Bushwacka! - Heaven On Earth 18. Bell Mesk, Steevie Milliner - Check 19. Dj Pp - The World 20. Simon Kidzoo - Flirt 21. Calee - Borjita S Rhythm 22. Jen Payne - Pon De Replay 23. Josh Butler - Only Eight 24. Cid, Taylr Renee, Mishell & Buka - Fancy $hit 25. Sean Finn, Yvvan Back - On The Beach 26. Claptone - Another Night 27. Dhuss - Frequency 28. Ridney, Luca Guerrieri - Luv Musica 29. Exyt, Lackmus - Lift Off 30. Lexx London - Make You Feel 31. Eric Costa, Piem - Meua Opera 32. Kyle Watson - Easy Tiger 33. Lefti - Weego 34. Murphy'S Law (Uk) - Have Your Love 35. Ben Remember - Waiting 4 You 36. Kinobe, Swag'S Flying High - Butterfly 37. Gunna - Fukumean 38. Fonema - Bandolera 39. Stogov - Smooth Turn 40. Julian, Lauti Mina - Disco Tool 41. Bagdie - Move It 42. Alrt - City 43. Fdf - Under The Lights 44. Jay Vegas, Mattei & Omich - Hypnotize 45. Twenty Six - No More 46. Sammy Virji - Blue Roll 47. Mo'Cream, Sebb Junior - Sugar 48. Cabu, Akaciafabich, Ferdinand Weber - Gold 49. Draxx - Back to the Sound 50. Jesusdapnk - Hot Springs 51. Drew - Feel It 52. Chinonegro - Mi Gentee 53. Steve Bug - Good Time 54. Kpd - The Ryth The Answer 55. Man Without A Clue - All Get Down 56. Figueredo (Ar) - Keep Moving 57. Hey Jack - Terre Du Soleil 58. Corrado Alunni - Dream Come True 59. Rumpus, Control Room, Rhiannon Roze - OMW 60. Man Without A Clue - In Full Effect 61. Bleu Clair, Ootoro - Beat Like This 62. Sond Zpace, Le Drux Justine - On the Podium (in a fashion house) 63. Mph - Spend The Night 64. Kc Lights, Welt - Fly 65. Frits Wentink, Dominic Oswald - Club Land 66. Nuyorica - Loffi 67. Stogov - Sounda 68. Dj Christian B - Keep Ya Burning 69. Ross Couch - Too Far Gone 70. Paco Caniza - Iberican Dreams 71. Akeem Raphael, Tiny Blue - Do It Again 72. Next Door But One - We Can Always Try 73. Mario Cruz, Peter Brown - Off Center 74. Vinnie Roussos - The Fading Echo 75. Sean Finn, No Hopes - What a Bam 76. Archie Hamilton, Tenesha The Wordsmith - Impress Me

 A special event has just been held at Takapuwahia Marae in Porirua to mark the welcome extended by Ngati Toa to iwi members.

01. Sharam, Millean - Party All The Time 02. Mr. Belt, Wezol, Nicola Fasano, Steve Forest, Topazz - New Millenium 03. Moullinex, Tee Flowers - Open House 04. Brock Edwards - Better 05. Mattei & Omich, Re-Tide - Friday Night 06. Paolo Solo - Basement 07. Davide Toschi - Light Shadow 08. Dont Blink - Feel so right 09. The Sunchasers - Move Your Body 10. Lightleak - Mambos 11. Maori, Adam Ten, Vintage Culture - Spring Girl 12. Zetbee, Reiner Von Vielen, Chemars - Moonlight 13. Yesca - Mood Loops 14. Dj Tennis, Ashee - I Wanna Know 15. Jack Harlow, Sonny Fodera - First Class 16. Finn, Ferreck Dawn, Robosonic - Sometimes The Going Gets A Little Tough 17. Bushwacka! - Heaven On Earth 18. Bell Mesk, Steevie Milliner - Check 19. Dj Pp - The World 20. Simon Kidzoo - Flirt 21. Calee - Borjita S Rhythm 22. Jen Payne - Pon De Replay 23. Josh Butler - Only Eight 24. Cid, Taylr Renee, Mishell & Buka - Fancy $hit 25. Sean Finn, Yvvan Back - On The Beach 26. Claptone - Another Night 27. Dhuss - Frequency 28. Ridney, Luca Guerrieri - Luv Musica 29. Exyt, Lackmus - Lift Off 30. Lexx London - Make You Feel 31. Eric Costa, Piem - Meua Opera 32. Kyle Watson - Easy Tiger 33. Lefti - Weego 34. Murphy'S Law (Uk) - Have Your Love 35. Ben Remember - Waiting 4 You 36. Kinobe, Swag'S Flying High - Butterfly 37. Gunna - Fukumean 38. Fonema - Bandolera 39. Stogov - Smooth Turn 40. Julian, Lauti Mina - Disco Tool 41. Bagdie - Move It 42. Alrt - City 43. Fdf - Under The Lights 44. Jay Vegas, Mattei & Omich - Hypnotize 45. Twenty Six - No More 46. Sammy Virji - Blue Roll 47. Mo'Cream, Sebb Junior - Sugar 48. Cabu, Akaciafabich, Ferdinand Weber - Gold 49. Draxx - Back to the Sound 50. Jesusdapnk - Hot Springs 51. Drew - Feel It 52. Chinonegro - Mi Gentee 53. Steve Bug - Good Time 54. Kpd - The Ryth The Answer 55. Man Without A Clue - All Get Down 56. Figueredo (Ar) - Keep Moving 57. Hey Jack - Terre Du Soleil 58. Corrado Alunni - Dream Come True 59. Rumpus, Control Room, Rhiannon Roze - OMW 60. Man Without A Clue - In Full Effect 61. Bleu Clair, Ootoro - Beat Like This 62. Sond Zpace, Le Drux Justine - On the Podium (in a fashion house) 63. Mph - Spend The Night 64. Kc Lights, Welt - Fly 65. Frits Wentink, Dominic Oswald - Club Land 66. Nuyorica - Loffi 67. Stogov - Sounda 68. Dj Christian B - Keep Ya Burning 69. Ross Couch - Too Far Gone 70. Paco Caniza - Iberican Dreams 71. Akeem Raphael, Tiny Blue - Do It Again 72. Next Door But One - We Can Always Try 73. Mario Cruz, Peter Brown - Off Center 74. Vinnie Roussos - The Fading Echo 75. Sean Finn, No Hopes - What a Bam 76. Archie Hamilton, Tenesha The Wordsmith - Impress Me

A few weeks ago, some locals in Waiatai Valley near Wairoa were devastated to find hundreds of dead eels in the Waiatai stream. Some of the eels, or tuna in te reo Maori, were thought to be 40 to 50 years old. A team from Hawkes Bay Regional Council has been investigating what happened. Council chair Sophie Siers joins Jesse with an update.

Mārama follows a young Māori wahine's journey to the north of England in the mid-1800s, seeking information about her family. 

All the objects showing at Cathedral Square Unearthed were uncovered during excavations conducted following the 22 February 2011 earthquakes. This includes merchant wares, household treasures and Maori taonga.

Nascuda a Nova Zelanda per

I had the idea for this episode sometime during mid-summer 2025. Then I became distracted by the big project I'm working on now, then the holidays, sick cats, and the random hassles of life. This one's only 34 minutes long. My deepest apologies for all the mispronunciations of Maori names. This is the story of Choie Sew Hoy 徐肇开 and the times he lived in during the 19th-century Chinese immigrant scene in New Zealand. There was a lot more going on in the history of Chinese New Zealanders. This story is mostly limited to the events surrounding the Otago Gold Rush of the early 1860s. Here are a few YouTube videos about this topic: Journey To Lan Yuan Ep 7 Choie Sew Hoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMYHSRTVo4M Journey To Lan Yuan Ep 8 The S.S. Ventnor. https://youtu.be/Q2EXkSdIGAM?si=cEN3uft5CpyU9Rzd The Mystery of the S.S. Ventnor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hg8DB42BkAk Choie Sew Hoy's descendants meet in Dunedin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhDM4pwxHdM Please consider supporting my efforts: Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/c/TheChinaHistoryPodcast/ CHP Premium:  https://teacupmedia.supercast.com/ Other ways to support: https://teacup.media/support  

I had the idea for this episode sometime during mid-summer 2025. Then I became distracted by the big project I'm working on now, then the holidays, sick cats, and the random hassles of life. This one's only 34 minutes long. My deepest apologies for all the mispronunciations of Maori names. This is the story of Choie Sew Hoy 徐肇开 and the times he lived in during the 19th-century Chinese immigrant scene in New Zealand. There was a lot more going on in the history of Chinese New Zealanders. This story is mostly limited to the events surrounding the Otago Gold Rush of the early 1860s. Here are a few YouTube videos about this topic: Journey To Lan Yuan Ep 7 Choie Sew Hoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMYHSRTVo4M Journey To Lan Yuan Ep 8 The S.S. Ventnor. https://youtu.be/Q2EXkSdIGAM?si=cEN3uft5CpyU9Rzd The Mystery of the S.S. Ventnor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hg8DB42BkAk Choie Sew Hoy's descendants meet in Dunedin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhDM4pwxHdM Please consider supporting my efforts: Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/c/TheChinaHistoryPodcast/ CHP Premium:  https://teacupmedia.supercast.com/ Other ways to support: https://teacup.media/support  

Based on the beautiful Maori proverb: "Turn your face toward the sun and the shadows fall behind you."Grumblegut the Ogre wants to be an artist!

The E Kai Maori partnership has been running three day wananga at different marae around the country for the last three years to revive practical knowledge of foraging and cooking techniques. Maori News Journalist Pokere Paewai reports.